Miss Lou

You talk about a woman great, I talk a legend A man carry in his heart from childhood to years Not come as yet. Our culture by captivity rend Without liberty, and unpreserved in scars of tears We gathered apart from village smoke and dust To mend and make in new language that healed Us to laugh again. The nights had God to trust Alone, and the radio around which we squealed Our belief in what she taught us. For I find there That I can love this self after holocaust and whip, Use the new tongue to balm me where I am bare, While she doctored us with potions of vision. Rip Not the past yet, it was tool stitching us together. And all our present we can use like she shew us A rich heritage of materials from us drawn together To hear it, again Liza singing the people's chorus Making Boysie run from flatboard liberating joy As the colonial idiom doomed, chafed in the alloy Of memory. We blend to make Africa, and preserve Miss Lou's legacy from which self to us was served.